a good place to get lost

Month: February 2014

Maybe it’s the long, frigid winter or the fact that I have been feeling under the weather for awhile, but when I saw today’s Photo Challenge I thought of Dante and the gate of Hell. Specifically the inscription on said gate.

Abandon all hope ye who enter here.

I looked through my photo files to find something that would fit the theme. This is what jumped out at me. It made me think of an entirely different sign than Dante’s.

Feel free to share:

Like this:

I actually ventured outside while it was snowing for this shot. Taken with my iPhone using the Hipstamatic app with Diego lens & Dixie film.

It begins as a whisper.

A few tiny flakes whirling and twirling. The Boy and I (back when he was a little-B boy) called them snow fairies. I don’t mind this kind of snow. The light hangs like a pale scrim softening the sky. Eventally, the snow fairies become a pageant, the twirling, whirling becomes more boisterous, like happy children dancing, their wild hearts aflutter, while bubbles of laughter cling to their lips.

It is a glorious music, like the joyful tinkle of piano keys.

But it doesn’t last. The cloud cover chases the scant light away. Burlier snowflakes barge in like tipsy uncles with round cheeks tottering through a party. They stumble and fall one on top of the other at a steady tick, blustering protest. They are the noisy jokers who must be heard. Splop. Plop. “Out of the way.” “Move aside.” They shout at one another, still clumsy, falling this way and that. Piling up. Piling up.

And then, nothing. They are asleep in their piles, dreaming, quietly breathing, dampening the sound of passing cars with their plump presence.

I have been watching the performance, and listening, trying to find something new, something a little creative in yet another bit of polar vortex melodrama. A meager attempt to bolster my already tenuous hold on sanity. It’s kind of soothing to look at a snow storm this way.

Until it begins to rain.

P.S. I did get some lovely pictures and a bit of fresh air, so there’s that.